I wrote mine after midnight in a bad state of mind. Just ignore it. "0" drunk 30!

WOW!! all this "discussion" because a guy asked if anyone wanted to program his remotes. What if he bought the remotes from an authorized dealer and that dealer went out of business, as so many ofter do. What if the guy was willing to pay your "union" wage to program the remotes. If you use the argument "i'll be on the hook if something goes wrong" then your lack of confidence in you ability would make me look elsewhere.

Please do not compare your profession to those of doctors. That is just silly!! I inharited an mx-3000 that was stripped . I was able to print the user manual. I asked URC for the editor. They sent it to me along with an EULA which I signed and in a weekend I had my remote controlling my entire theater. I'm sure I could not remove organs or teeth with that learning style.

The fact is this goldenzrule.....just tell the guy no and you look and sound a lot better than you do. To go on a CI crusade is not necessary. I'm sure someone else could use the money the guy is offering. Make no mistake I hope you have more business than you know what to do with. You just sound bad.

Good luck to the OP.

If you had actually read the OP he stated he bought online.

And URC has no authorized online retailers.

Our industry has union wages? That's news to me. I'd be out of business if I had to pay my guys union wages lol

I understand he bought them online. I'm simply pointing out that there are other ways to come across these remotes that my lead to the original seller not being around. The wage thing was a case and point reference. My point being there is no set standard so let someone who wants to help the guy out and make some cash help him. All other should simple reply no or not reply at all. It is rediculous to be of the mind set that you don't want to help the guy because he didn't pay top buck for the hardware. I have dealt with many CI's that I have no problem paying for their "services". I believe what you guys do is valuable. I have no problem paying for "services" rendered. There is no reason why the "service" has to be all or nothing. Have you guys paid top buck for everything you own??

If I call someone to unclog my toilet they don't ask if I bought it online.

I have no problem helping people and do not charge top dollar to do so, just fair market value. The issue is he admittedly purchased online, from an unauthorized seller to save his money. Your point of a dealer going out of business, in this case, is not valid. I have helped others on this very site for free even, who were in that predicament in the past. The point is the OP circumvented the system to save money on the hardware, and then pay someone on the side, which means paying for a service for pennies on the dollar. He wants to drive the Mercedes, but pay for the Kia. As CI's, it is hard to stay afloat with the products that are available to consumers direct and the ways for them to purchase. So when someone buys a product that is available ONLY to CI's, and admits to doing it by going the unauthorized route, and further wants to undercut the market value I mentioned above, it does cause problems. Other manufacturers have ceased to exist for this very reason. Protecting a line and protecting our livelihood does not equal to going on a crusade. Hope you understand where the problem lies from our point of view.

One question; what section is this thread under?
Forums > Professional > Complete Control by URC
Oh, yea, Professional. For a second I thought it was DIY.

That has to be the dumbest comparison I've ever read on this or any other forum.

I have only one more message worth to say on this subject. The only thing that makes URC remotes even remotely challenging to program is the bad software design. Once you've gotten over that hurdle, it's pretty straight forward and you'll start banging your palm to your forehead due to its overly simplistic capabilities for a "programmable" remote. It's still a lot more than you'll be able to do with an off-the-shelf remote from the likes of Harmony, but it's not like writing your own software or even scripts.

The keys to decent programing:

1. Understand the awkwardness of the CCP software. This forum will be required for some of that because there are a lot of undocumented issues.

2. A good understanding of logic-based design. Even a light familiarity with writing pseudo-code is going to help here. Pick up any basic computer programming book if only to learn about logic - conditionals, variables, states, functions, etc. You never have to learn any language, the concepts alone are the value here.


If you don't want to handle any of the above and you only need a remote to perform a single action on a single button press, then save time/money and go with a $20 universal remote. Buy one with a JP1 interface and at some point in the future you can still get into heavy customizing if you desire.

I think with all the verbose comments we have completely missed the potential depth of programming that could be involved here. 2 IP touch screen remotes, 2 RF touch screen remotes, 1 IP base station and 1 MSC processor. Together there is a possibility of numerous IP drivers to be configured, multiple RS232 ports, contact closures, macros with trigger codes and on and on. This isn't even close to a simple installation and should never have been sold online because of that fact alone.

There are no IP drivers to configure in this control system. MX5000 and MRX1 are incompatible with each other. RF triggers sent to the MSC400, WiFi RSS return from local network.

KP4000 > MRX1 > MSC400 to trigger macros.

MX1200 > MSC400 to trigger macros.

You're looking at the potential of what this hardware can do, but only in the context of a certain specification. This equipment can be programmed for some pretty straightforward 1-way control with fancier-than-normal interface design.



There's just a lot of whining about not being able to sell the equipment as well as programming. Again, half of something is better than all of nothing.

You don't seem to be able to count to four. Look at the thread title again:



Exactly my thought: he doesn't want an actual installation company to do this. Instead, he wants someone who probably has agreed to bring new customers to the company he works for NOT to bring him to that company, but to do the work on the side. "Moonlighting."

As I see it, this pretty much kills the rest of any argument you might have about the negative response here.


Customers are allowed to resell them, and if they do not disclose that the buyer cannot get service, then they've cheated the buyer. I'm sure that happens all the time. The fact that you don't like the idea does not stop it from happening.


They can indeed state the conditions under which they will honor the warranty! What you say implies that no manufacturer has any control, via refusal to perform warranty work, on gray market goods. That no manufacturer can say "there are no legitimate sellers of our product via the internet, so we will not honor warranty on any goods bought via the internet." Yet they do.


You know, people are rubbed the wrong by, say, syphilis, or maybe death, but they still need to know about it. Bad feelings are a stupid excuse for not speaking the truth. Your potential customers should be told the truth -- the company, URC, can help professional installers to know how to program these devices, but if sales and programming were opened up to everyone (I know, not exactly what you propose), help calls to URC would be overwhelming. Do you want URC to stay in business to perform the warranty service you want to guarantee? Then don't interfere with their business model. They allowed their stuff to be available to everyone years ago and it nearly killed them.

It's not often the word syphilis makes its way into AV and automation discussions; point well taken :-)

To the OP...you have 6 devices that need programming/configured/setup whatever you want to call it. There's no legitimate install firm that is going to do that for <1,000 dollars. This does not take into account ensuring all of your other devices (you know, the TV, AVR, STB, DVD, media player and whatever else you have) are setup and configured properly...which is important when integrating with the 6 new devices you are looking to have programming/configured/setup. Also does not take into account if the IR emitters are present and in the right spots, doesn't take into account if the devices using 232 (or IP) are setup properly.

I just ran some numbers quickly for my firm to do all of this...one tech on site, 6 hours minimum; likely to be a full 8/9 hour day given it's client provided and installed (tech will redo most if not all cabling to our standards and create documentation). $2,794 would be the estimate for best case scenario; i.e. tech shows up and everything is connected and working properly, not having to touch a single wire or redo any connections. You'd be on T&M of course. Best of luck. Anyone willing to take this on remotely would be in for a world of hate if things aren't connected properly.